NFL Division Winner betting tips: Who will win the four AFC divisions in 2017?

The race to Super Bowl LII gets underway in early September and one of the big questions is who will head into the post-season as champions of their division? Leigh Copson has picked out his division winners from the American Football Conference (AFC).

Division Winner Tips

AFC East Tip

I could write a few paragraphs in order to pad out this selection, but that would be a waste of both mine and your time because we all know who is going to take this division unless something truly dramatic happens.

The New England Patriots have won the AFC East in each of the last eight seasons and in 13 of the past 14, so it goes without saying I am backing another division title for Bill Belichick, Tom Brady & Co. Of course, the odds are not particularly lucrative so you may want to consider a Division Winner double, treble of fourfold in order to make backing New England worthwhile.

AFC North Tip

The AFC North title has been shared around by the Pittsburgh Steelers, Cincinnati Bengals and Baltimore Ravens since 2001 and it will be between these three teams to determine the 2017 champion because we all know the Cleveland Browns should be more concerned with simply avoiding going 0-16 in 2017. But who will win the division?

While it would be wrong to simply write off the Bengals and the Ravens, I am backing the Pittsburgh Steelers with a great deal of confidence. I fancied them to go all the way to the Super Bowl last season – only for the Patriots to get in the way in the Championship Game – and I fully expect them to go on another deep run this time around if they can stay healthy.

If any AFC team is going to deny New England back-to-back Super Bowl appearances it is the Steelers, and they should prove they are the class of the North once again this season.

AFC South Tip

Just like the North, the AFC South is another division that is likely to be contested between three teams with the Jacksonville Jaguars likely to find themselves propping up the division after Week 17. So the question is, will it be the Tennessee Titans, Houston Texans or Indianapolis Colts claiming the division crown this time around?

Houston have taken the honours in each of the past two seasons, with Indianapolis taking it in the two seasons prior to that, but I am backing the improving Titans to win the division for the first time since 2008.

Tennessee went from a 3-13 year in 2015 to a 9-7 campaign in 2016, and only a poor division record kept them out of the post-season as Houston pipped them via a tiebreaker. Lessons will have been learned from that disappointment though, and with Marcus Mariotta leading the offense it looks like being a very positive season for Tennessee that sees them end their wait to win the AFC South.

AFC West Tip

The 2016 season was one of ‘what could have been’ for the Oakland Raiders, who appeared to be heading into the post-season as real dark horses to go all the way only to lose their starting quarterback and his backup to injury in the final few weeks of the regular season – talk about heartbreak.

But the Raiders have two more opportunities to bring a title back to Oakland before they head to Las Vegas in 2019 and I expect them to head back to the post-season next January.

Fending off the Kansas City Chiefs and Denver Broncos in the race to win the AFC West will not be easy, but quarterback Derek Carr will be back at the controls and Marshawn Lynch should have some success running behind that impressive offensive line. On the opposite side of the ball the Raiders have strengthened their questionable secondary, so the recipe is there for another division title.